A Texas judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a couple there suing Delaware right-wing activist Lauren Witzke after she went online and accused the two men of human trafficking and pedophilia in response to the men posting about the birth of their surrogate twins on social media.
Claiming Texas Courts’ “lack personal jurisdiction” over Witzke, District Court Judge Tanya Garrison on July 12 dismissed the civil lawsuit filed by Eric Vaughn — the owner of a Houston hair salon who happens to have nearly half a million TikTok followers. A court’s lacking of personal jurisdiction means a judge does not have the power or authority to make decisions that affect a person.
“While I’m pleased by the dismissal, I am dismayed with the abuse of litigation and with the weaponization of the U.S. Judicial System,” Witzke told Delaware Online/The News Journal in a statement.
Witzke, who ran for U.S. Senate and lost to Chris Coons in 2020, added she plans to take action against Vaughn’s attorney, Tony Buzbee.
Editor’s note: The initial story about the lawsuit ran on two pages of The News Journal’s March 28 edition.
“I intend to pursue Mr. Buzbee and his law firm for costs, sanctions, and attorney’s fees, and I will pursue him all the way to the Texas Supreme Court,” she said. “It appears Mr. Buzbee’s $5,000 recent political donation to the judge did not reap a reward in this case.”
Buzbee, who did not respond to messages seeking comment for this story, has donated $7,500 to Garrison’s campaign, according to Transparency USA: $5,000 was donated to the Democrat judge in 2022 and another $2,500 this year, according to the website’s most recent numbers for 2023.
While the Houston trial lawyer has donated to many judges’ campaigns, an article in law.com said Buzbee in 2016 donated $500,000 to then-President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration committee weeks after he said he could no longer support Trump.
Lawsuit filed against Witzke
Vaughn shared a video on social media in late February showing him and his husband holding their 32-week-old “preemie twins” as a family for the first time.
Seventeen days later, Witzke reposted Vaughn’s video to her Twitter account saying, “A new fetish with pedophiles consists of robbing babies from their mothers straight out of the womb. This is human trafficking and would be illegal in a sane society.”
Vaughn filed his defamation lawsuit on March 20 in Texas’ District Court of Harris County, where most of Houston is located. In addition to seeking no more than $75,000 in damages, Vaughn said he filed the legal action to make an example of Witzke and discourage her from spewing such comments about anyone in the future.
BACKGROUND:Couple sues Lauren Witzke for saying birth of their surrogate twins is ‘human trafficking’
Witzke’s attorney, Mark Ivanyo, did not respond to messages, but in court documents said his client is a Christian conservative political commentator who on March 15 “expressed her disagreement” with Vaughn’s lifestyle and decisions — which he said is allowed and protected by the First Amendment.
Ivanyo argued Vaughn’s lawsuit was not to make the hairstylist whole, but “to silence political opposition and send a message to all who agree with Witzke’s deeply held religious beliefs.” Calling the lawsuit frivolous, Ivanyo earlier this month said the legal filing has nothing to do with Texas.
A week later, the judge agreed that Texas Courts lack personal jurisdiction over Witzke and dismissed the case without prejudice — meaning a person who filed the case can try again.
Shortly after Witzke thanked Ivanyo on Twitter for representing her, the lawyer tweeted that “Christian ideals and speech have been under assault for too long.”
Defamation, ‘out for blood’
The dismissal of this case did not necessarily resolve Vaughn’s claim that he was defamed.
Juliet Dee, a University of Delaware associate professor of communication, said Vaughn could try to sue Witzke in another state court.
“Usually defamation cases start in state courts,” Dee said, “so he might have to start by suing her in the state of Delaware.”
Defamation is false information that harms the reputation of a person, business or organization — whether it be verbal (slander) or in print (libel). The matter is usually resolved by a civil lawsuit, where the person or organization suing is seeking money to make them whole or is trying to defend their reputation.
But defamation lawsuits can be expensive and stressful, as these cases usually take four to six years to get through the courts. They will also typically cost $100,000 in attorneys fees, even if the plaintiff wins.
“It’s expensive emotionally,” Dee said. “And it’s terribly expensive financially.”
Dee pointed to Kristina Ruehli, who filed a civil defamation lawsuit against Bill Cosby in 2015. Ruehli argued Cosby falsely accused her of lying and tarnished her reputation when she came forward a year earlier to say he raped her in 1965.
After spending $80,000 of her own money, Ruehli withdrew her case in 2016.
BACKGROUND:Accuser drops defamation suit against Bill Cosby
“She spent $80,000 of her own money on attorney fees,” Dee said. “And she might have won if it would have gone forward, but she finally just gave up.”
Cosby’s insurance company in 2019 did settle a federal defamation lawsuit filed by seven women in Massachusetts. The women sued him in 2014, claiming Cosby called them liars after they accused him of sexual abuse.
It’s not known if defamation lawsuits are up, but the Media Law Resource Center published an article last year in which it mentioned there may have been an uptick in libel cases brought against media organizations during the latter part of the last decade versus the early part of the 2010s decade. A staff attorney at the Center said this research only addresses lawsuits against the media and not suits brought against individuals, non-media businesses or ordinary social media users.
In the same way that Vaughn can pursue another defamation lawsuit, Dee said Witzke could follow up with her threats to go after Buzbee.
Witzke has the legal right to seek costs, sanctions and attorney’s fees against Buzbee, but Dee said that would probably require going to Texas to pursue that.
Pursuing this action would require money and Witzke would need to argue that the lawsuit filed against her was frivolous, something Dee said she doesn’t believe it was.
“It sounds like a lot of bluster on her part,” she said, adding: “She is out for blood.”
Contact Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299 or eparra@delawareonline.com.
